Monday, March 23, 2009

Lake Washington Inaugural

I did my first lap of Lake Washington this past weekend with Duncan, and overall it was a great ride. Just over 50 miles with more climbing than we'll see on the STP. I finished the ride feeling better on my Salsa than I ever have on an upright before. I'm really, really excited about that. My legs were a bit more fatigued than expected, both during and after the ride, but nothing to do about that except train harder.

But before the ride started things weren't so rosy. My recumbent flew off the roof rack, not once but twice, and got a bit mangled in the process. Now I'll have to take it into the shop for some hopefully minor repairs. Then I had to head back home and get the Salsa, put it back on the car and head back to Gasworks Park to start the ride. Somewhere during that process, I forgot to bring my carefully packed tailpack, so I ended up leaving without many of my supplies (mostly extra clothes) I'd packed the night before. Since I didn't end up needing any of them, I guess I was a bit overpacked.

In any case, I started about 40 minutes late, then pushed it hard to get to the Eastside at a reasonable time. Juanita hill turned out to be less fearsome than I expected - I wasn't fast on it, but it didn't feel too bad either. One nice side effect of riding up Queen Anne frequently is that most other hills just don't worry me much now.

Duncan was kind enough to lead the rest of the way, which went pretty well, though I was a bit spent from getting to his side of town as quickly as I could. Still, it was a really nice ride overall, with some killer views to boot. I'm looking forward to doing it again.